Deposit return scheme (recycling)

I'd love to see the stats on what % of bottles that go in machines are actually paid out. My experience on my three visits was about 60% got paid out on. That led me to give up and just chuck them in the green bin like I always did. An interesting side effect is now instead of buying 2l bottles of Diet Coke, I'm now buying 5l bottles of water to go in the fridge instead. That's probably better for me so every cloud has a silver lining. I think they'll end up increasing the deposit to try to force people into using the crappy machines but given the abysmal performance of the machines so far, that may just push the prices to the point where some people stop buying these drinks. The recycling will never get to 90% but the number of units may drop which might be a good enough result in itself. Someone might then ask the question why they didn't just bring in a tax and not bother spending millions on machines and maintenance and pissing the whole country off.

Any container needs to have the Irish return logo to be accepted, QR codes don’t come into it. It’s all based around the barcodes. Previously multipacks wouldn’t have barcodes on each can but now they do if they’re new stock. It sounds like you were just putting non DRS containers into the machine.

Not sure it'll get that far though, as the manufacturers, distributors and retailers will be on the war path if their sales figures are falling, jobs are being lost and Revenue won't like the fall in consumer taxes.

No, honestly I can't think of another internationally used scheme that can bring our recycling rates to 90%+, can you?

I don't know of any internationally used scheme that can bring our recycling rates to 90% or indeed any countries recycling rates to that level. No country in the world is getting to that level of recycling.

What I am suggesting is that a comprehensive review of what was working from our existing recycling schemes instead of a lazy, expensive and environmentally unfriendly scheme that looks at collection rates for a few specfic types of items while screwing over the general population would have been more beneficial.

We have now just stopped buying cans and bottle. Tried to work with this scheme for a while but have come to the realization that it is just a scam and will cost us money in the long run. A couple of weeks ago we went up the north and as well as the usual beer haul, we brought a coke haul (i know) home with us too. When thats run out we will just stay off the coke til we go up north again and buy some more. Maybe we will even give it up altogether. But we have totally stopped buying anything in bottles or cans in the shopping now.

But our waistlines might yet be happy for this scheme. But it is a scam, no two ways about it.

Bought 8 pack of beer at local Centra and noted price was €17 and was thinking that's a bit pricey as expected price to be €16.20 with DRS. Didn't realise DRS was applied at the till making actual price €18.20! Left them back. Only in Ireland would retailers and brewers take the opportunity to price gouge when the waters are muddied with the deposit scheme.

I don't think the price of the "deposit" and the retail price of an item should be separated. Put them in together. So people can clearly see that 12 bottles of sparkling water are now nearly 7 euro in tesco.

More bad press for it today in the nationals. It's a shambolic implementation of a poorly thought out system.

The scheme should have been voluntary with a token given for returning bottles rather than increasing the price of things. I have a recycle bin. I am being charged twice for a service I can only use once. As usual in this country it's all about the stick rather than the carrot.

Well how is it funded at the moment? Who pays for the drivers, the lorries etc?

In the interest of the environment and saving the planet we should set up a scheme whereby people are rewarded for returning bottles. This should be funded from general taxation. There is plenty of money there to do it.

Come on mate. If the environment is as important as they are making out it would be well worth it.

But hey, we all know this is BS. All of the world power increasing their carbon footprint. What we do on this island makes zero difference. Nothing.

I find it quite poor that the price of the deposit isn't baked into the larger of the two prices. When you're walking around the supermarket you often don't have the time to examine everything in detail. The large price you see should be the price you're going to pay at the til. Instead of €4.85 this is actually €6.65.